Matt Snyder, author of the critically acclaimed Dust Devils, wades into the crowded horror market with his upcoming take on the conspiracy horror genre. The game is called 44-A Game of Automatic Fear. The game centers on one of the classic tales of the horror genre: the body-snatchers. The premise is simple. You have discovered that someone close to you has been replaced by a lifelike robot. They know that you know, so you are next. Can you fight the conspiracy and escape with your life, or will you end up as part of it and working to convert your fellow players?
Chapter 1
This chapter details the setup of the game. The game runs in a very specific manner. Each player gets a number of scenes to encounter the conspiracy. The amount of scenes depends on how long this tale of the conspiracy goes. Setting the length of the tale also sets the resources the players get to make characters. The game ticks down scene after scene, with the players getting beat up and the conspiracy getting a little stronger.
Players are loosely defined by three characteristics: Resolve, Contact, and Material. Resolve is basically anything involving personal action, Contact is anything involving other people, and Material is anything involving technology or gear. There is a lot of overlap here so that players can think of alternate ways to get things done. The players also get Bonds, which are important NPCs that matter to the player as well as Anxieties, which are the characters fears. Once the characters have been set up, it’s time for the GM to set up his conspiracy. The conspiracy has stats based on how long the game is, and these stats are very similar to the ones that the PCs have. The conspiracy gets Control, which is the basic die pool that the GM gets in conflicts as well as Program, which are reserves for later. The conspiracy gets Agents, which are similar to Bonds, except the starting agents are the people the PCs have discovered to be robots, and Secrets, which are the little details that the characters notice about the conspiracy to figure out if someone is “one of them”.
Chapter 2
All these things come into play in conflicts. Each scene has one central conflict. Each side gets a number of dice equal to the central stat they use. The conspiracy always uses control, while the players choose which one to use. There is overlap between the attributes because whichever side loses takes damage to that attribute directly first. The winning side not only gets narrative control, but also gets s small dice pool bump as a reward.
Players bolster their rolls with their Bonds and Anxities. Bonds are NPCs that help the player out in his dealings with the conspiracy. They give extra dice, but the rules as currently written require any damage received to go through the bond. If you lose enough dice to zero out the bond, the bond becomes an Agent of the conspiracy. This leads to those classic scenes where the desperate character goes to their friends’ house, only to discover the friend is already a robot and has been for some time. Anxieties add a little strategy to the game. If you bring in one of your characters fears into the game, you risk a loss in this conflict for a win in a better one down the line. When using anxieties, you remove your highest successes and place them in reserve to be used later. It makes it harder to win a conflict, but encourages players to lose a battle once in a while to win the war. If you bring your character’s fear of heights into a conflict, they may chicken out now, but it’s ultimately for the greater good.
The conspiracy has similar resources. Agents are the conspiracies version of Bonds, whereas secrets function like Anxieties. The difference is that secrets are the fears of the conspiracy, as it is afraid of being found out. When the GM uses secrets, the players discover the little imperfections of the conspiracy, like the fact that the robots all blink at once, or they always order black coffee. Secrets are mechanically the same as Anxieties.
Chapter 3
The final chapter discusses how things end up in the game. The PCs can only come together toward the end of the story, once they realize they are all on the same side. And what fun would a game about body snatchers be if the main characters couldn’t get turned and used against their former allies? When a player zeroes out one of his score, it’s very likely he will become a robot. Luckily, he stays in the game, but now he’s on the GM’s side.
Pros:
Let the Players Do the Work: Players telling a collaboratively spooky story leads to some good creepy moments. The players know what they fear, so they hit those moments and give themselves goosebumps instead of relying on the GM to spook them.
The Hunt is On: The game offers different campaign lengths right out of the box, which is a rarity for indie games. It works as a one-shot, but there are rules for keeping it going.
One of Us: Letting the players continue as one of the conspiracy is a lot of fun. While character ‘death’ is still a possible consequence, the player that dies doesn’t have to sit around for the rest of the night and do nothing.
Cons:
Tiny Cogs: There are a lot of fiddly bits to the rules. It can be difficult to remember all the important points the first time through a game. A cheat sheet/quick reference guide would be really helpful.
In the Mood: Keeping things spooky in an RPG is tough. If you have a player that’s not into being scared, things can go from scary to silly quickly.
We Don’t Have the Technology: While evil robots are fun, rules for running the conspiracy as aliens, or vampires, and the like could be a nice way to lengthen the game. While it could be a supplement, a one page insertion with different rules could just as easily occur.
The Bottom Line
Style: 5. The system and the story click well together here as the players manage their shrinking resources to escape from the conspiracy.
Substance: 4. Everything you could want to run a evil conspiracy game is here, but there are one or two final tweaks the game could use.
Who should buy it? Fans of The Thing, everyone who’s ever seen an episode of The X-Files, the gamer with the tin foil hat.
